No, Castle
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "All she wants to do is crowd against him and thread her fingers into his hair. To get caught in whatever nonsense he wants to whisper against her knee. To whisper back and let the world wrap close around the two of them. Just the two of them." A one-shot that has nothing to do with anything. Let's say it's set late season 5.


Title: No, Castle

WC: ~2200

Rating: K

Summary: "All she wants to do is crowd against him and thread her fingers into his hair. To get caught in whatever nonsense he wants to whisper against her knee. To whisper back and let the world wrap close around the two of them. Just the two of them."

A/N: I had forgotten that I secreted this away some time ago, so it survived The Purge and The Purge II: Electric Boogaloo.

It is without shame and has no excuses to make for its own existence.

* * *

He's crouched down. Balanced on the balls of his feet with his fingers hooked over the wooden ledge. He leans as close to the thick plexiglass as he can without actually touching it.

His eyes fall to the faded text. His fingers trace the worn-out places. He mouths guesses at the missing words. It's dark here, far from the sunlight pouring in the entrance. A dead spot between stretches of track lighting that don't do much to relieve the gloom anyway.

But his face catches it all. The soft yellow diffusing through the scarred glass and something internal. Something that's entirely him catches all the light to be had. Sharp interest bleeding into adoration. His eyes dart from place to place, as if he can take all of it in—all of _them _in—if he tries hard enough.

He turns to her, knuckles white in an effort to stay on his feet while he twists around to fix her with The Look.

"No, Castle."

She says it before he has a chance to open his mouth.

It's as much about her as it is about him. Not letting him get a word in is at least as much about her. Because The Look is bad enough when all she wants to do is step up behind him. All she wants to do is crowd against him and thread her fingers into his hair. To get caught in whatever nonsense he wants to whisper against her knee. To whisper back and let the world wrap close around the two of them. Just the two of them.

But they're in public. He's already talked her into a long lunch. A field trip to Prospect Park on a Thursday afternoon. And they're in _public._ She's a grown woman, and The Look alone is bad enough.

He knows it.

"I didn't say anything." He turns away. He faces the glass again, like he can hide the smile. Like she can't see that damned, smug smile through the back of his head.

She can hear it, too. The smile. She doesn't respond. Responding in any way would be a mistake. Responding leads to blueprints in the middle of the night and an actual, two-sided conversation about why he is not—is _not_—buying the the unit right below them "Just in case." Why he should not just "put it in the _Possible Hamptons_ folder," and they will not be revisiting the issue when she's had her coffee.

She glares at the back of his head. At the smile she can practically _taste_ and congratulates herself. She's learned her lesson about responding. She has _definitely _learned her lesson_._

He flickers his fingers down by the seam. A dull grey strip where glass meets wood. It sets off another go-around. A flurry of movement. Antic whiskers, scrabbling claws, a cloud of dust swirling around them all, then stillness.

Seven or eight of them sit up as one. They make a tall, motionless row, stringing themselves along the dusty, hollow trunk as it rises on an angle from the floor toward the center of the exhibit.

They hold the pose. Each and every one is absolutely still. Then, in perfect unison, they drop to front paws, and then they're off again. Another burst of movement. They break into clusters—smaller knots of four here and two there—and still they all freeze at once.

They're down on the ground now. All but one or two. They're closer to the glass. The crowd swells with knots of wanderers. Kids drawn in by one another's soft exclamations of _Timon! _Parents and nannies and bored older siblings trailing behind. They stay awhile. They join the easy camaraderie of the small band of diehard enthusiasts, then move on.

Beyond the glass, a twitch runs through the line. Something provokes a chain reaction, though it's nothing Kate can see or hear. To her, it's all stillness and a sudden undulation. A single whip cracking all along the line before they collapse into a heap. Black noses and bright eyes and furiously active little paws as they groom one another in twos and threes.

Castle lets out a soft laugh, delighted with them. With the entire tableaux. A toasted, squirming pile pressed up to the glass and the bursts of movement here and there in the background.

He turns again. He's looking for her. The smile is for her, but he finds a grumpy-looking little boy shoving at his elbow. Castle salutes. His smile widens as the kid pushes his lip out and bunches his fists at his side like he's getting ready to howl.

A harried-looking woman with a baby strapped to her chest rushes up. "Lee! Don't push." She reaches out for the boy with one hand, trying to hold the fussing baby still with the other. "I'm sorry."

"He's ok," Castle catches her eye. He gives her a quiet grin as he crab-walks a few steps to the side, making room for the boy to belly up to the window ledge. "You're ok, right, Lee?"

Dark eyes open wide and the little mouth twists to the side. Castle lowers his head and glowers back, twice as fierce. He says something in an undertone. Words just between the two of them. Lee's shoulders bunch and roll.

For a second, it hangs in the balance. Acquiescence or a tantrum. It could go either way.

Kate can feel the mother's weary strain hovering in the air beside her, and then it's done. Castle and the boy trade solemn nods. Their heads bend together and they're deep in some whispered conversation before the woman can even let out a breath of thanks.

Kate presses her lips tight. Tries to mute the grin that threatens to take over her whole face as she steps back and gestures to her left. There's a quieter corner there, out of the way.

The woman smiles gratefully as she edges past. The baby struggles in the carrier. She lets out a throaty yell or two, but levels off as her mother rocks from foot to foot, murmuring in her ear as she roots in the diaper bag on her hip.

The action dies down again on the other side of the glass. A jumbled pile of five or six settles into the subtle expansion and contraction of a shared breath. Most of the crowd drifts away. Newcomers pause and move on before too long.

But the scene hasn't lost any of its charm for Castle or his new friend. He dances broad fingers along the wooden sill. His head dips forward and his eyebrows climb. Lee crouches to look as Castle points to a pair nestling a little apart from the main group.

He turns to the boy, a question on his face. Lee's brow furrows. He stares hard, then finally turns to Castle and says something. One emphatic word, and the corners of Castle's mouth twitch. He keeps it together, though. His face is serious enough as he answers back that the boy lights up with glad pride. They turn back to the glass, the two of them together.

Kate looks on. The sight draws her in. It leaves her shoulders soft and her face unguarded. It makes her forget. That she's a grown woman and it's a Thursday afternoon. That they're headed to an interview from here, and she should be getting her game face on. That they're in public.

She looks down, startled to feel Castle's hand curling around the back of her calf. She has no idea how she got this close. To the glass. To him. The two of them and that knowing smile.

It's a mistake. His cheek is resting against her thigh now, and she's caught.

She's caught up in this quiet, eager joy of his. In the serious business of little boys and meerkats on a Thursday afternoon.

Lee's mother comes to collect him. The baby's head lolls. She's fast asleep and Kate wonders how long it's been. Castle waves off the woman's thanks. His fingers trail over the back of Kate's knee as he reaches out with his other hand to shake Lee's.

The little boy draws a breath. He goes tall and rigid with excitement. The words wash out of him as he tugs on the frayed hem of his mother's sweater. She turns the three of them toward the exit then stops as if she's suddenly remembered something. She folds one arm across the carrier and crouches to say something in the the little boy's ear.

Lee jerks around at the waist. He cups his hands around his mouth and calls out, a thousand times louder than he needs to,"Thank you, nice man."

"You bet, Lee." Castle holds back his grin until they turn away again. It spreads over his face as he tips it up toward her, brighter than it should possibly be in the gloom of the house. "Nice kid."

Kate looks down at him, her own words tangled on her tongue. She wants to know what they talked about. How he does that. How he charms the fury out of a kid he's never met and makes her forget everything but him and a long lunch at a city zoo.

But he's already capturing her fingers. He's already pulling her close to the glass again. Leaning his cheek against her hip, and pointing out the animals one by one. He's introducing her. Because he's named them already. He's hammered it all out with Lee. Of course he has.

He's named all five at the front. No, six. And the tiny one at the center of it all. So, seven, then.

He brings his index finger close enough to not quite touch its own reflection. The movement catches their attention. Five of them startle awake. They scatter to the far corners of the exhibit. They climb the high, sandy turrets and disappear into the lights. They scatter, leaving just two behind, the soft golden curve of an adult sheltering a tiny one.

"Droopy." Castle says with a grim shake of his head. "Sorry, little guy."

"Droopy?" It slips out. A faint repeat of the one word she catches. He's been going on. She's missed most of it.

She's caught up. She's holding her breath and leaning in. Crossing her fingers for luck as the sightless little thing stumbles away and the larger one is there in an instant, keeping them close to the glass. Nudging the tiny one into the shelter of a swell of mounded sand.

"Droopy," he says again and she knows he's biting back that smile. "Because of his paws, I guess." He looks up at her. He lifts his hands and lets them flop at the wrists. "Her paws? Can't tell with pups." He wobbles a little on his toes.

"Really, Castle?" She bumps her hip out and nudges him closer to upright. "Droopy?"

"Hey, talk to the kid." He leans into her harder than he needs to. "I'm with you, though. I think Mabel would have gone with something classic."

"You _cannot _call her Mabel!" She bites her tongue a second too late.

"Sorry, Beckett. It is what it is." He leans back to give her a sidelong glance. His mouth is a straight line. A perfectly straight line. "Of course, Mabel's just her given name."

She scowls down at him. That's what she's going for, anyway, but he turns his face into her hip now. He doesn't make it easy. He hides the straight line of his mouth, but a smile dances in his eyes. _That _smile. It catches all the light.

He waits, but she doesn't ask. She is _not _asking. She's not.

"Given name?" It slips out.

She bites her tongue hard enough to taste blood, but he's laughing. Straightening up and dragging his hand up the back of her thigh. He snakes an arm around her waist, just a little too low to be family friendly. She moves to elbow him, but he reels her in, stealing any leverage she has.

"They have family names, too." He lowers his mouth to her ear. "You know _family _names?"

_Family _names? She's not asking. She will _not _ ask. She lifts her chin. She ignores him for all the good it does her.

"Like Telly the Lookout back there."

He points to the far back corner. To the big one, a little darker than the rest, who seems to be a loner. He's still. Comparatively, anyway. Every once in a while, he drops to his front paws, but he bobs back up again, immediately.

"He's not a very good lookout," Castle says conversationally. "Too twitchy. And his real name is Claude, but no one calls him that. Not even his mother."

She's not asking. She's not.

"Lettie Bricks. She's gone now, of course." He sighs. He leans his head against hers. "Sad story, but typical. Another enforcer, trying to make a name for herself."

"_Enforcer?" _She rounds on him.

He catches her. He ducks behind her and wraps his arms around her waist. He smiles wide against her cheek.

"Enforcer!" He laughs into the crook of her neck and whispers low in her ear. "It's a mob, Kate. A mob of meerkats."


End file.
